Don't Teach Kids Murder

...Kind Of

Author's Note

...the cover isn't ready. *sobs*

There were a few delays because I've been studying for coming back to school, but it will hopefully be completed sometime in the next few days! I can safely say that it will be a huge improvement over the current one.

A bit of a later release today, but still, enjoy the newest chapter!

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The thing in front of them is most definitely a landing pod. It looks kind of like what would come out of a spaceship blueprint diagram from Nora's engineering class - four spindly legs, a slightly battered metal hull, and what seems to be a glass skylight.

"They've got to be in there," Nora whispers just as N disappears inside the landing pod.

Jake winces. "This is bad. How are we going to get them out?"

"Let's take a look around first." Nora carefully makes her way down, testing ledges before stepping fully onto them. Getting saved the first time was embarrassing enough. It's faster going down than up, and soon they're standing ankle-deep in snow.

A flash of green catches her eye - Thad's already waiting for them near the entrance, a gaping triangle-shaped hole in the side of the spire. Nora glances inside for a second. I thought I saw something...

"What took you so long?" Thad whispers once they're all huddled out of sight of the landing pod. "I've hidden Addie over there." He gestures to what looks like a pile of scrap metal, but Nora can just spot a dip in the ground almost completely blocked from sight.

"I saw N go in the landing pod- that thing in the middle of the spire." Nora explains.

"Which means they're probably all in there." Jake finishes. "We heard voices from inside as well."

Thad turns to Nora. "You need to separate just one of them, right?"

"That's right," she responds. "Only one." If they can catch one of the Murder Drones by surprise, her and Jake together might just be able to pin it down long enough - but two is out of the question. Ugh, maybe I did need an extra Drone for this to work... reconsidering how V beat both her and Addie up a few days ago, a one-on-one fight could well have meant a one-way trip to the scrap heap.

"Then I'll try and-"

Thad stops abruptly, all three of them freezing as the sound of footsteps reaches their ears.

"Come on, let's go look," Jake hisses, grabbing Nora by the arm and dragging her after him.

"What're you-"

"Shhh!"

Nora feels Jake slap a hand over her mouth, stifling her protest. Hey! I'm not an Untrained Neural Network, you don't have to do that! She whacks him to get him off. Jake lets out a quiet 'ow' but doesn't complain, focused on watching through a crack in the spire's wall. Nora huffs softly, then peers in to see what he's looking at.

The first thing Nora notices is that Uzi and N are making their way towards the entrance. The second is that J's chained up... outside the landing pod. Okay, great - they can go for the slightly less psychopathic and bloodthirsty Murder Drone.

"I'll distract. You two handle the situation." Thad's already a fair distance away, hopefully moving to intercept the two Drones. Nora backs up against the wall, straining to make herself hopefully as invisible as possible, and Jake does the same. Moments later, Uzi and N walk out of the corpse spire - a friendly walk? No, checking on something? Huh. More like trying to exploit Uzi to get back into Outpost 3 and murder a lot more of us? Can't trust any Disassembly Drone, after all.